Is it possible to measure the overall average happiness of states by using the words of residents, as posted on Twitter? A team of researchers at the University of Vermont says yes.

Using the Mechanical Turk Language Assessment word list, which scores words on a scale of 1 (sad) to 9 (happy), a recent study examined geotagged tweets from 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., coding each tweet for happiness.

"Happy" words were defined as things like rainbow (8.1), love, hope and wonderful, while negative words were defined as things like earthquake (1.9), boo, ugly and lied. Vulgarity also ranked negatively, bumping down scores through what researchers called, "geoprofanity."

In addition to ranking states by happiness, researchers also calculated happiness for nearly 400 cities, tied their data with other existing measures of happiness, such as Gallup surveys, and examined how their data correlates with income and obesity in an area.

Although researchers don't take the context of words into account when looking at tweets, they argue that large amounts of text can still give reliable results.

"An analogy is that of temperature," the research report said. "While the motion of a small number of particles cannot be expected to accurately characterize the temperature of a room, an average over a sufficiently large collection of such particles defines a durable quantity."

The abundance of "happy" words such as "beach" and food-related words in tweets from Hawaii led the state to nab the title of the happiest state, according to researchers.

Hawaii's happy state abbreviation — "HI" — helped skew the numbers in its favor, the study said, but "the rich variety of happy words occurring in Hawaii paints a convincing picture of it as a happy state regardless of this small bias."

Hawaii ranked at 6.17 on the happiness scale. The mean value of the entire United States was 6.01.

>> Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie, top center, addresses a joint session of the Hawaii State Legislature giving his state of the state address at the Hawaii State Capitol Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, in Honolulu.

Saddest state: Louisiana

Associated Press

Louisiana is the saddest state in the U.S. "primarily as a result of an abundance of profanity relative to the other states," the study said.

The state ranked at 5.88 on the happiness scale.

In the study's examination of the happiness of nearly 400 cities, Lousiana's Mandevill-Covington area came in 197th, and Slidell, La., was ranked 327th.

Some sad words used in Louisiana tweets included things like pressure, ain't, gone, bored, stupid, mad, hungry, tired, jail and hate. Vulgarity in tweets also dropped the state's overall score.

Maine was ranked as the second happiest state with its 6.14 happiness ranking, while the Dover-Rochester Delaware/Maine area and Portland, Maine, made the list of happiest cities.

Some happy words used in Maine tweets included Sunday, beach, river, great, forest, home, family and awesome.

>> The Maine State House is framed by spruce trees in Capitol Park, Friday, Dec. 10, 2010, in Augusta, Maine.

2nd saddest state: Mississippi

Mississippi State University

In the study, researchers looked at language and happiness "clusters," where similarities between states could be found based on word usage. Mississippi, which ranked as the second saddest state, was included in a cluster with Lousiana, which was ranked as the saddest state.

Mississippi had a happiness ranking of 5.89.

Some sad words used in Mississippi tweets included things like gone, ain't, miss, boo, ugh, bad, mad, hungry, wrong and lie. Vulgarity in tweets also dropped the state's overall score.

>> The Mississippi Capitol is shown through the limbs of a blooming Japenese magnolia in downtown Jackson, Miss. on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2005.

3rd happiest state: Nevada

Amadscientist, Wikipedia

Nevada came in as the third happiest state, boasting a 6.12 ranking.

Reno, Nev., made the happiest cities list, coming in 122nd with a happiness ranking of 6.04.

>> Smoke from a fire rises in the cloud bank behind the Nevada State Capitol in this file photo.

3rd saddest state: Maryland

Associated Press

Although Maryland was listed as the third saddest state in the U.S. with its 5.90 ranking, individual towns did a little better, with the Westminster-Eldersburg area ranking as the 66th most happy city, Frederick, Md., as the 221st, and Salisbury, Md., as the 294th.

Utah ended up with a 6.11 ranking in the study, nabbing the title of the fourth happiest state in the U.S.

A plethora of Utah towns and areas also made the list of the happiest cities in the U.S., with Provo-Orem coming in 33rd, St. George coming in 36th, Logan coming in 80th, Salt Lake City/West Valley City coming in 83rd and Ogden-Layton coming in 167th.

>> The Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta from the outside Friday, Jan. 5, 1996.

6th happiest state: Colorado

Associated Press

Colorado and its cities gave a strong showing in the study rankings, with the entire state coming in as the 6th happiest, at 6.10.

Longmont, Colo., was ranked as the 3rd happiest city in the U.S., while the Lafayette-Louisville-Erie, Colo., area was ranked 8th, Boulder, Colo., was 10th, Fort Collins, Colo., was 12th and the Denver-Aurora area was 56th. Additional cities also made the list.

Some happy words used in Colorado tweets included springs, great, love, park, beach, international, awesome, beautiful, home and Starbucks.

>> The State Capitol in downtown Denver on Friday, March 25, 2005.

6th saddest state: Alabama

Associated Press

Alabama, with its 5.94 ranking, was listed in the study as the sixth saddest state in the U.S.

Although the state didn't do well in the overall study, Alabama cities like Florence and Birmingham made it onto the happiest cities list in the 204th and 280th spots respectively.

>> The dome of the Idaho Statehouse looms over the foothills of Boise.

7th saddest state: Michigan

Associated Press

Michigan made the list of saddest states in the U.S., coming in in seventh place. Some of its cities, however, including Holland, Lansing and Detroit, made it onto the happiest cities list in the 54th, 267th and 345th spots.

>> In this photo provided by NASA, a United States Marine Corps helicopter flies over Washington with the full moon and the U.S. Capitol in the background Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, as seen from Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.

9th happiest state: Washington

Associated Press

Washington, the Evergreen State, came in ninth in the happiness rankings with its score of 6.08.

Spokane, Wash., is the eleventh happiest city in the U.S., according to the data, while Seattle, the Olympia-Lacey area, Maryville, Bellingham, Bremerton, Yakima and others also made the list.